As much as I love this band and album, I never really listened to the original release of it. This was burned for me by a friend and featured several bonus songs that I just assumed were part of the original album. I may prefer my unofficial sequence, but the songs that are here are still fantastic. The first five songs have all become classics and helped usher in a new vogue for catchy synth pop.
The last Allman Brothers album to feature Duane Allman was assembled as part follow-up to their Fillmore album and part tribute to Duane. The new songs showed they were just hitting their stride as songwriters, and the supplemental material from the Fillmore concerts showcased all the best elements of the band. For my money though it couldn’t have gone out on a higher or more poignant note than Duane’s instrumental “Little Martha”.
Crack the Skye was the first Mastodon album I heard and it didn’t take me long to get converted. Almost completely abandoning their metal vocals of their previous albums this fully embraced the progressive rock tendencies already apparent on Blood Mountain and Leviathan. This time around they focus the album on Czarist Russia, with seven of their absolute best tracks.
A fitting sequel to the phenomenal Colors, BTBAM picks up right where they left off with another set of supremely complicated progressive metal. Not afraid of mixing it up they venture into classic rock breakdowns, jazz, and any other bizarre style they deem fit.
For my money this is Bob Marley’s finest album and by extension the best reggae album ever made. It retains all of his socio-political commentary with a stronger set of songs. “Rebel Music”, “Revolution”, and “Lively Up Yourself” are all among his best, but the highlight is “No Woman, No Cry” which might barely be recognizable in it’s original studio version.
Voices proved that the 80s would be very good to Darryl Hall and John Oates. The singles are all among their best but it’s Hall’s recording of “Everytime You Go Away” that is the album’s showstopper. A wonderful salute to Philly soul, it gets my vote for the duo’s best.
Critically and even among my friends I can hear audible groans, but I’ve always thought this album was great. The Madden brothers might craft pop-punk a little too radio friendly for some tastes, but if you get beyond the singles you’ll hear a group baring their soul and speaking the truth which very much affected 21 year old me. Call it nostalgia, but this is one of those albums that chronicled a certain time in my life.
CCR’s second album of 1969 was their first masterpiece. Featuring some of their best known songs it also established John Forgerty as a ballad writer, particularly on “Wrote a Song For Everyone”. This album reflects the relentless pace the band set for themselves, and was the first of three straight albums to appear on this here list.
Sabbath picked up right where they left off on Paranoid for their third and best album. Take your pick, “Sweet Leaf”, “Children of the Grave”, “Lord of This World”, and “Into the Void” are all among the best things Iommi and company every came up with. There are no shortage of classic riffs and songs from a band who was still sort of inventing it as they went along.
This is the album that kick started the trip-hop craze. “Safe From Harm” starts the album off perfectly with it’s great bass line backed by Shara Nelson’s vocals. The album rotates vocalists who range in skills, but the music which is American hip-hop filtered through a British dance club is universally consistent.
Released the same year as Blue Lines, this album helped make rave culture part of the mainstream. Before this, Primal Scream were little more than Rolling Stones imitators, but they dropped a little ecstasy and created a masterpiece. They didn’t abandon their love of the Stones however, as evident by hiring Jimmy Miller to produce several tracks. The clear highlight remains “Come Together” which can sum up everything great about the album better than I can.
U2 started the 2000s with another change in direction, mostly abandoning the techno and electronica experiments of their previous two albums. Not surprisingly it was their strongest album in nearly a decade and featured no shortage of instant classics.
The last of Kiss’s makeup albums, this showed them returning to rock with no pretentiousness. New guitarist Vinnie Vincent helped write a handful of songs and pushed the band in their heaviest direction to date. A commercial disaster upon it’s release, it’s now universally considered one of the band’s best. “Keep Me Coming” might be the band’s best riff, but it’s far from the only highlight. The title track, “War Machine”, and “I Still Love You” are all classic Kiss.
The Chemical Brothers breakthrough album helped deliver on the next big thing hype surrounding techno music in 1997. “Block Rocking Beats” is still arguably the best song of the genre, delivering a huge sound ready made for arenas. The only guest vocals coming courtesy of Noel Gallagher and Beth Orton, it’s the music that takes center stage here.
There is no underestimating the impact Eddie Van Halen had on guitar playing. With “Eruption” he simply demolished every guitarist who came before him and helped set the stage for a never ending wave of imitators. What got lost was what an incredible front man David Lee Roth was. This is a set of blistering hard rock that knocked every one of their contemporaries on their asses. Van Halen might have recorded some great songs and albums after this, but they never did it better.
A remarkably assured debut that seemed to combine psychedelia and the catchiest synth-pop you’ve ever heard. This became an instant classic with songs as strong as “Time to Pretend”, “Electric Feel”, and “Kids”. No hipster's collection would be complete without it.
The first words on Patti Smith’s debut were “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.” One of the great debuts in music, Patti Smith was truly unlike anyone else in music. More a poet than a rock star the songs are loose in structure and feature borrowed choruses and more than a few rough edges.
It’s hard to find anything new about Marvin Gaye’s landmark album so forgive me if I repeat things you’ve heard before. There’s a reason the album seems almost guaranteed to appear on every list of the greatest albums ever made. “Inner City Blues” is easily on the short list of music’s greatest bass lines as well.
Alice Cooper’s first official solo album after the dissolution of his band, is a concept album that was as strong as any of his previous band’s work. It features a wonderful monologue from the legendary Vincent Price and more excellent contributions from long time producer Bob Ezrin. Alice certainly embraced his love of horror, but also found time to make a love song to alcohol "Cold Ethyl", and one of the saddest songs about domestic abuse you're likely to hear with "Only Women Bleed".
Lou Reed’s greatest solo album seemed to come out of nowhere. It was a scathing critique of a city he still loved, and Reed felt free to criticize the corruption and general sleaze of his adopted home. The songs themselves are remarkably stronger than anything he had written since the Velvet days, and lyrically he was never better.
Already a legend in underground hip hop and producing, El-P topped himself with his 2007 masterpiece. I highly doubt any rapper ever had a vocabulary as expansive as El-P’s, and his once minimalistic beats are given a much grander scale. “Tasmanian Pain Coaster” gets things off to an apocalyptic start and the rest of the album follows suit.
The Pumpkins breakthrough album saw them hooking up with Butch Vig hot off the success of Nevermind. The band was in shambles but luckily Billy Corgan came prepared with the best songs of his life. He played nearly everything on the album and delivered one of the era’s defining albums. “Mayonnaise” is probably his best song, but each of the monstrously popular singles helped put Chicago on the alt-rock map.
The first Chemical Brothers album is just as impressive as Dig Your Own Hole, but it’s the album’s softer songs that made me rank it just a little higher. The first side helped set the template for what would soon be dubbed big beat, but the Brothers showed they could be right at home with more chilled out relaxing music.
Brian Eno recorded this over the course of two years while simultaneously working on other ambient projects, collaborating with David Bowie, and recording an album with Cluster. Apparently 100 tracks were written for the album with only 10 making the final cut, and well Eno couldn’t have distilled a better album. This would be Eno’s last “rock” album of the decade and marked the end of his first great period of prolific genius. Eno was never more refined, and his musicians are as great as ever. The second half of the album points to the more ambient work he would pursue for the next couple of years and contains “By This River” which is damn near the best song he ever recorded.
Few things could have prepared anyone for this album. Tom Waits made a radical departure from his jazzy piano driven songs to the junk rock he helped pioneer here. These were soundscapes about the dejected and off beat members of society. Almost all the songs are remarkably short, giving just fragments of what was going on in his head which was anyone’s guess. An utterly bizarre and one of a kind album.
Curtis Mayfield’s first solo album was a historic landmark in black music. Rapidly expanding on some of his protest songs with The Impressions, Mayfield made a defining statement. Musically the album is lush and beautifully arranged, and has more than once been compared to Sgt. Peppers. Mayfield isn’t afraid to let his music speak for itself and even on some of his most political tracks he allows the music and arrangements to take center stage.
Homogenic took what was already a great thing and perfected it. Bjork had more than proven herself on her first two official solo albums, but this time around the album itself seemed to offer a unified vision. This was dark, lush, and seductive music. An album that just doesn’t sound the same in the daylight, this is easily her finest hour.
You might be noticing a trend of my praising albums that are tidier and more focused than their predecessors. James Murphy seemed to don many hats on the first LCD Soundsystem album, but here he is wholly original and unique. Less focused on samples and homages to his idols, the songs are stellar entities. I’m still not entirely sure what “All My Friends” is about even after listening to it 50+ times, but I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Outkast had more than proven themselves by 2003, and it seemed like a wonderfully pretentious 70s thing to record two separate solo albums to be released together. The amazing thing is that it works over and over again. Big Boi officially supplants Andre as the duo's superior rapper, although the battle might seem more of a TKO considering Andre 3000 spent his entire album trying to be Prince. Although his singing voice might not have the necessary range required, the songs he contributed are absolutely phenomenal. There are no shortages of highlights on either album but collectively they represent the crowning achievement for hip hop's greatest group.
I’m inclined to believe this is one of those groups you either get or you don’t. They don’t bother to tweak their formula for the follow up to Alligator, and well why mess with success? Matt Berninger makes the most of his very limited range, with one of the most oddly satisfying baritones around. “Fake Empire” is an opening track for the ages, and most of the albums best song take a cue from that song’s more subdued moments. “Slow Show” is probably their best ballad, but that’s just one of the highlights here.
Definitely Maybe just seemed to stand out as the best of the new guitar drenched pop rock that was coming out in the mid-90s. Despite all the Beatles comparisons, Definitely Maybe seems to borrow more from The Sex Pistols and Mott the Hoople than the fab four. Noel Gallagher got voice of a generation praise for his songwriting, which is saying something because most of the songs on this album were written in about a weekend after boasting to their label that he had tons of originals ready to go. As a result the album more than “borrows” from other sources, but mixes it all together in a way decidedly unique. From the opening track this is a band with big dreams and aspirations, before those dreams were realized and they self destructed. For their debut though, it’s just about as perfect as messy British rock can get.
After a decade of writing hit pop songs for other people, Carole King found herself a multi-platinum superstar with her breakthrough solo album. Comprised of several new songs, she also re-interpreted several of her old hits for others in what turned out to be the defining singer-songwriter album of the 70s and a landmark for female artists.
The Replacements cleaned up (slightly) for their big label makeover, but the songs are everything that was great about the band. This is much more focused and unified than Let it Be, and is a song or two away from being the superior album. Paul Westerberg is aiming for a larger audience here, and half the album seem to be anthems to many like minded people. This lacks the vulgarity and a lot of the charm of Let it Be, but when the songs are this good, it hardly matters.
I admit I listened to this album as a mere formality before this list, having largely ignored it for the better part of a decade. I was quickly reminded that this is one of the best albums of the decade and the one that rightfully put Queensryche on the map. A much more unified and focused concept album than many of it’s predecessors it borrows heavily lyrically from Orwell and musically from Pink Floyd. Geoff Tate was a vocalist in his own class, but every element came together and featured enough awesome individual tracks to make the whole thing come together.
The Dixie Chicks third album with Natalie Maines was their most stripped down. It’s still incredibly sleek and well produced, but it lacks the overall pop elements of Fly and Wide Open Spaces. The girls lovingly embrace their bluegrass roots particularly on “White Trash Wedding”, but the final two ballads might just be their best songs. This would easily get my vote as the best country album of the past decade.
I’m sure there are plenty of Dylan fans wondering how I could insult this album by putting it this low, but my list I make the rules. Dylan’s first foray into electric rock included just the first half of the album, but Dylan quickly established that he was going to rock like no one else had in the past. This began what was his most fascinating and critically acclaimed era, but the second side showed that he could still do folk better than anyone around as well.
This was punk music at it’s best, even from their earliest days they seemed to be a band that had something to say, instead of just being pissed off about everything like many of their contemporaries. They rallied against racism “White Riot”, American imperialism “I’m so Bored with the U.S.A.”, and England’s job market “Career Opportunities”. It was punk at it’s most important, and the template that every subsequent band could only hope to emulate.
Rod Stewart’s best albums were always a random mix of originals and dirty cover versions. It’s just that on Every Picture Tells a Story both of those elements were at their peak. “Maggie May” and “Reason to Believe” are possibly one and two of his best songs, and his cover of “(I Know) I’m Losing You” is damn well show stopping, particularly Mick Wall’s drum solo.
Although they had already recorded one great album (Benefit) under their belt, Aqualung was the album that cemented their status as FM rock gods. They were moving further away from their blues roots and exploring progressive rock territory, which only made sense when your main gimmick is having a flute player. These songs were just stronger than any Ian Anderson and company had come up with previously. The title track features one of the great classic rock guitar solos, and I can’t find enough great things to say about “Wind Up”.
The Beatles official second album was light years beyond their first excellent album. Lennon and McCartney continued to evolve as songwriters, particularly on the opener “It Won’t Be Long”, but it’s hard to argue the albums three best songs might be covers. Their versions of “Please Mr. Postman”, “You Really Got a Hold on Me”, and “Money” were proof positive the Beatles were better at doing everything than everybody.
After two of his close friends died of a heroin overdose within 6 months of each other, Neil Young was a broken man. He recorded Tonight’s the Night as a drugged out venting session for his grief and his label rejected it for two years. The final album is as raw and emotional as Young ever got on record, his voice cracks, and the songs are barely held together. This is an artist rapidly disintegrating before our eyes, yet somehow it’s utterly brilliant.
John Lennon’s second post-Beatles solo album seemed to be more the crowd pleasing offering the public wanted. He allowed Phil Spector to go crazy with orchestral arrangements and delivered a set of songs that were just slightly more accessible. There is a sense of optimism, but Lennon is still angry, insecure, bitter, and disillusioned. The title track might have been the most uplifting song he ever wrote, and it’s hard to find a happier sounding song than “Oh, Yoko” but in between is a man still coming to grips with his emotions, it’s just that the backdrop is a lot more lush.
Ray Davies took his fascination to all things British to it’s most logical conclusion with this album. He devised a romanticized countryside that never really existed and proceeded to pine for it like a regular crotchety old grandpa. The opening title track is among his most joyful songs, and the rest of the album helps flesh out the basic ideas established there. After the increased confidence in brother Dave on Something Else, his contributions seem all but eliminated this time around.
Of the first six Kiss studio albums I don’t think there’s any debate which one is the best. Rock and Roll Over saw the guys with all the confidence of success without the excess of Destroyer weighing otherwise good songs down. As good as some of Gene’s songs are, particularly “Calling Dr. Love”, Paul Stanley absolutely steals the show here. “I Want You”, “Take Me”, “Mr. Speed”, and “Making Love” are all among the Starchild’s best. “Making Love” also happens to feature possibly the best solo Ace Frehley ever played.
During Dream Theater’s great run in the 90s, Magna Carta approached Mike Portnoy and asked him if he was interested in forming his own super group and recording an album. He grabbed former King Crimson bassist Tony Levin, Dregs keyboardist Jordan Rudess, and his DT band mate John Petrucci. Luckily Rudess came prepared with a ton of new songs. All of the first 8 songs are among the best instrumental work you’re likely to hear, and they led to Rudess being invited to join Dream Theater full time.
Kurt Cobain was disappointed with how polished Nevermind sounded so he recruited former Pixie’s producer Steve Albini to produce their follow up. The songs are noticeably nosier, messier, and less commercial but still fantastic. Taken as Nirvana’s final album, it’s hard not to read too much into some of the songs and lyrics, particularly the closer “All Apologies”. The rest of the album may have been deliberately alienating, but Cobain’s gifts as a songwriter just can’t help but come through.
The ultimate in concept albums, Roger Waters personal tale of alienation wound up producing one of the decades best selling albums. The sound of this album is dark and gone are the long instrumentals that characterized their previous three albums. This was a massive point of contention for the band, particularly Richard Wright who is all but absent from the entire recordings. As much as it is Roger Waters’ show, David Gilmour certainly gets a few moments to shine, particularly “Young Lust” and “Comfortably Numb” whose solo is on the short list of greatest things ever recorded.
Elton John’s self titled breakthrough was his first album released in America, and people rather understandably lumped him in with the mellow singer-songwriter crowd after his first hit “Your Song”. Listening to the rest of the album it’s clear that Elton John was a lot more diverse than that. This album is probably his most indebted to folk music, full of strings and ballads. There is a little country, gospel, and a few upbeat rock songs. Can’t say I’ve heard an Elton album more than this, and it easily stands among his very best.
Following their critical and commercial breakthrough Queensryche made their best collection of songs. The album saw them tackling much broader subjects socially, setting them rapidly apart from many of the other hard rock/metal acts of the time. They scored their biggest hit with “Silent Lucidity”, but the rest of the album easily holds up. “Another Rainy Night (Without You)”, “Jet City Woman”, and the title track are all outstanding.
After being limited to two songs per-album for several years it was no surprise that George Harrison had a lot of backlogged songs when The Beatles broke up. The quality of those songs was something few people could have guessed at. All Things Must Pass was a revelation for fans who got to see a third wheel emerge as a true superstar. Produced by Phil Spector it features two albums worth of Harrison’s best, rounded out with a series of extended jam sessions from what would soon become Derek and the Dominoes. The title track could very well be the single best song George ever wrote.
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